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Students Try Their Hand in Urdu Calligraphy

Thursday, June 8, 2017

The Program in South Asian Studies recently offered its students the chance to try their hand in a Calligraphy Workshop focused on writing Urdu, an art form that dates back centuries and is deeply embedded in Urdu culture. The workshop was taught by Faraz Khan, a native speaker of Urdu and a calligraphy artist with a studio in Princeton, and was open to the public.

“Calligraphy is such a large part of Urdu culture,” says Fauzia Farooqui, a lecturer of Urdu and Hindi at Princeton and organizer of the event. “It just made sense for us to offer this opportunity since we have such a wonderful resource right here in the Princeton community.”

“Urdu calligraphy is rooted in Arabic and Persian culture and evolved on its own in South Asia,” Farooqui explains. “While it’s a painstaking and difficult art form to learn, it’s essential to understanding the culture. It also helps support the script-learning process.”

While there are a few other calligraphy fonts, Nasta ‘līq is probably the most widely used one in Urdu scriptwriting.

If you missed this year’s workshop, no worries. Farooqui says she plans to host this workshop annually.